missing voluntary workouts is the symptom, the underlying problem is that AH does not want to be here for monetary reasons.

maybe people are lining up to be first to say i told you so.

My told you so is that AH and his agent agreed to the contract because he would be able to collect an unprecendented 32+ million dollars for 13 months of work then force his way out of DC and into a new mega contract with another team.

I find my told you so interesting. Noone wants to devel into it more than to say "AH is a cancer" or "its just mandatory". i get it and ill drop my repeated opinion on this subject.

none of yall found the ethical dilemnas of tampering interesting either or the fact that an aging back with declining production has an escalating salary either . .

Can anyone please please please link an article which says AH is upset about NT? He said he wasnt thrilled about it, but will play whatever he is asked to play by the coaches.

Furthermore, he has stated he is doing this offseason plan as he feels it got him in shape in TN.

so if all of that is true, then that explains why he hasnt been at OTAs. But why didnt he show up for mini-camp? its not like coming to town for 3 days would have destroyed his entire offseason plan in TN?

Of course, publicly, Haynesworth is going to say all the right things. if he wasn't, he'd look like a problem-child and damage his trade value. however, actions speak louder than words. If Haynesworth were serious about becoming a better player and doing whatever the coaches asked him to do, then he'd, you know, do what theyve asked him to do and show for camp with the rest of the team.

100% sure, no. Is Albert on record saying he doesn't want to (or prefers not to) play NT, yeah.

As far as him and the staff beefing, well, what other conclusion should we draw after Shanny and Bruce Allen wanted the entire team here for voluntary workouts and AH wasn't here. As far as I'm concerned that's a problem. And the trade rumors aren't out of thin air, had the right deal come along Haynesworth would be history.

Looking on the brighter side, notice that Rocky and Carlos both have taken part in team activities despite being RFA's. Also notice that the Vikes' Ray Edwards, in the same position, isn't doing even "mandatory" stuff.

missing voluntary workouts is the symptom, the underlying problem is that AH does not want to be here for monetary reasons.

maybe people are lining up to be first to say i told you so.

My told you so is that AH and his agent agreed to the contract because he would be able to collect an unprecendented 32+ million dollars for 13 months of work then force his way out of DC and into a new mega contract with another team.

I find my told you so interesting. Noone wants to devel into it more than to say "AH is a cancer" or "its just mandatory". i get it and ill drop my repeated opinion on this subject.

none of yall found the ethical dilemnas of tampering interesting either or the fact that an aging back with declining production has an escalating salary either . .

man i sound like a lil bitch right now, my bad yall

I understand what you're saying Mountain, but if him OR his agent think they can hop around from team to team getting that kind of money, they're out of their freakin' minds. He would have needed a better year than what he had last year for to be considered for a mega contract from another team. I think if he didn't feel he could get in better shape with his own trainer, the one he trained with when he made the Pro Bowls, and he didn't feel he was being jerked around with position changes, only speculation, he would be here for these workouts.

Your analogy is incorrect. I think a more accurate one would be.....'during our summer vacation period while the plant is closed, our company is offering voluntary training for all employees for the purpose of self improvement. While this training is free and beneficial to your career, it is not mandatory, it is voluntary. But if you do not attend this voluntary training your boss will publicly point you out and make you public enemy #1. But this how NFL coaches behave.

I think my analog is a lot closer to reality than yours is. Here's why:

- MS didn't start off OTAs right away, there was a "vacation period".
- The purpose of the OTAs is not self-improvement, it's for the improvement of the team. For the team to perform to its maximum potential all parts need to be in place for these OTAs or there will not be "maximum potential".
- While the training is voluntary, every other player made the committment to be there.

I understand AH doesn't have to be there, and I can understand not having loyalty to the employer who paid him an obscene amount of money even by NFL standards, but when every other teammate is there and you have no loyalty to the guys next to you play-in and play-out....then as I said he's "a selfish person with no loyalty to your teammates or the organization. Period, end of story."

__________________"I would bet.....(if), an angel fairy came down and said, '[You can have anything] in the world you would like to own,' I wouldn't be surprised if you said a football club and particularly the Washington Redskins.'' — Jack Kent Cooke, 1996.

Now to use an analogy where I just said they weren't applicable. If one of a sales team's top sales makers accomplished the impressive numbers but never came to the sales rah rah meetings sure the others would be upset, and management would rattle their fist, but in the end the top money maker would be allowed to follow their plan because the company is making beaucoup bucks off of him. Likewise, AH can act ridiculous because the Skins make beaucoup bucks off of marketing, and even the publicity of AH will make for great drama in the regular season.

Let me throw another analogy at you, from firsthand experience.....Going to your scenario of sales, let's say technical sales (IT, telecom, whatever). In these type of sales you have several different teams supporting the project; Outside Sales, Inside Sales, Proposals, Project Management, Engineering, etc. If that same top salesmaker (Outside Sales) is a primadonna and doesn't support the rest of the team beacuse he's a superstar and his $hit don't stink, you can be sure the rest of the team will notice that action and when they're called upon to go "above and beyond" for that particular salesguy, they won't. Conversely, if the salesguy is "one of the guys" and spends extra time working with the support teams, when they are needed they will "run through walls" for that salesguy.

AH is a "me first" dude, it can't be spun any other way.

__________________"I would bet.....(if), an angel fairy came down and said, '[You can have anything] in the world you would like to own,' I wouldn't be surprised if you said a football club and particularly the Washington Redskins.'' — Jack Kent Cooke, 1996.

It's probably not right, but this would bother me more if it wasn't known for years that Haynesworth is like this, that he marches to his own beat. And it would bother me more if he hadn't told Shanahan from the get go that he wouldn't be there. I mean this isn't a case of a guy who always showed up all the time throughout his career and now suddenly is deciding to try things his own way, and this isn't a case of a guy not answering his phone while working out on his own in Arizona or Miami (or wherever)

__________________You're So Vain...You Probably Think This Sig Is About You

The Steelers just had a mandatory workouts but we are still doing voluntary ones. Who decides when a team can hold them?

I was under the impression that all teams had to wait till June. It would be nice to have a mandatory one to see AH and his conditioning and so we can finally hear from him and his thoughts on the new scheme instead of all the speculations.

__________________"Not only do you get a 1st down, but you get a whole new set of downs" John Madden

Honestly people need to get over AH not working out w/ the team, including his teammates. It is what it is. Hopefully he'll show up for some of the OTA stuff when they're installing the defense. That way at least he'll know where he's going to line up. But if he comes in at training camp and he's in shape and rebounds w/ a good year no one is going to care about the off season. If he plays like he did last year then he's really going to be miserable here cause the fans and the media are going to be all over him.

Albert Haynesworth couldn't stand John Palermo, his defensive line coach last season, and therefore wasn't a big fan of practice. But even teammates could not believe his abject apathy as he sat on the side of the field while they were going through drills on one day last season, when Big Al had another little "owie."
"My ankle hurts," he complained in that soft, lilting voice that makes coaches lose their minds.
Phillip Daniels was playing through a torn biceps tendon that day. Another player later remarked, "I think that's the same day I was practicing with three cracked ribs."
I could make a lot of bad jokes about Haynesworth's ballooning weight and physical fitness, mostly his lack thereof. I could keep calling him Mr. Butterworth and Albert Ain'tworth and lace into the Redskins' previous regime for even offering this ingrate of a player a $100 million contract -- the largest ever signed by a defensive player in the NFL.
But all that would serve to do is get Big Al and his supporters angrier toward the press. And he gets to keep playing the victim while casting the media jackals as the perpetrators who just cannot understand why a man of his supreme size and talent is broken up about having to play in a new defensive scheme, so much so that he refuses to take part in any voluntary workouts with other veterans in Ashburn.
Instead, I'm going to cut deeper than that, right to the heart of the matter, to the only thing that may wake the man up from his selfish slumber:

I'm not going to care about AH until he shows up for opening day out of shape and plays poorly. If he shows up in shape and performs on the field, we're all going to be eating crow for denouncing him this offseason.

"He doesn't have to be here," Chris Cooley said, during an appearance on DC101's Elliot in the Morning. "And when the season starts, if he shows up and he's playing, no one's gonna give a damn what he did [in May]. Obviously he's gonna have to play for us. I mean, there's no way around it....

... I'm so tired of hearing about it, because he's still not doing anything wrong."